Chapter 3 | PoV: Aisha
Aisha woke to someone shaking her at the shoulders. “Lady Of-Jinan!”
“Huh?” Aisha's groggy eyes fluttered open. Had . . . had she fallen asleep—or passed out? Either way, that was embarrassing. Her head did not split her brain open from the pain nearly as much as before. She felt . . . grounded in reality.
Traces of magic drifted in the air—purple and orange. The orange impression was Aisha's. The purple must have been the other mage's. Purple? Interesting . . . It all helped reinforce that whatever had happened was real.
Someone knelt in front of her, light-brown hands on her shoulders and looking at her, concerned.
Aisha's eyes widened in recognition. “Rafiq's secretary! Ah . . . Zawar?”
“Aye. Are you okay? What happened?” Zawar removed his hands.
A very imposing someone else occupied Aisha's vision to her left. Still sitting, she jumped. “Legislator Rafiq!” Aisha gave a deep bow of her head and torso in respect.
Wait . . . Aisha tilted her head to look around Zawar, his big head and large beard blocking her view. Not a single hair remained on his head, so he had to make up for that with his daunting beard, black, but with a concerning amount of white hairs. His eyebrows furrowed in concern, brown eyes delving into her soul—or something. He wore the robes of a government official—not to be confused with mage robes.
Aisha did not see the mage. Maybe Zawar and Rafiq or someone got the mage and detained them already? Unlikely. Aisha feared the worst.
“I'm okay—but what about that mage?”
“You're okay? You're not feeling ill, are you?” Zawar glanced towards the wet rag on the floor, which had probably wiped away her bile from earlier. Aisha gave a silent apology to Zawar for having to deal with that.
“The mage!” Aisha exclaimed. She rushed through her words. “There was this mage and they cast magic that took away light and he attacked me and I crushed his skull in but he's gone a-and then I wasn't feeling good—but I'm fine now!”
“Woah, woah, it's okay, slow down,” Zawar glanced up at Rafiq.
She couldn't slow down! She didn't exactly have time for this. How long had she been out for?
“Oh! Wait!” Aisha said. “I need to go back to my mage tower and take my shift.”
She was going to be late to her job—scratch that, she was already late.
Zawar held up a hand, palm facing Aisha. “We're got someone to take your shift. Tawfiq—take anyone's shift for more pay, that one would.”
“Tawfiq?” Aisha grimaced. “That man drinks on the job.”
“Yeah, well, he hasn't nodded off drunk on the job yet,” Rafiq added, stroking his impeccable inky-black beard, posture casual (ink comes from a type of scorpion, since, well, there's no oceans). Aisha had learned ink came from an ocean animal called a squid, before.
Like Zawar, Rafiq wore the robes of legislature. These did not come with a hood, like mage robes. Neither did Rafiq wear a turban, his well-groomed black hair visible to all.
Rafiq ended his casual posture when he suddenly stopped and stood straighter. “Ahem—sorry . . . that didn't suit my station.”
Aisha said nothing.
Zawar said nothing. Then he broke out in laughter, hearty booming traveling through the hallway.
Aisha only smiled.
“What were you doing here, anyway?” Rafiq crossed his arms, analyzing Aisha with a piercing gaze.
She sighed. “Okay. I was bored—digging through records in the mage tower . . . You know—I can only take so long sitting around holding magic up for hours. I can keep it up in the back of my mind while doing other stuff . . . I—”
“Something tells me this is getting interesting!” Zawar thought out loud. For an old man he really was a child sometimes.
Rafiq's glared at Zawar.
“O-oh, sorry.”
Rafiq's attentive green eyes moved back to Aisha. “Continue.”
“I found a missive . . .” Aisha turned her head and glanced back into Rafiq's office, her hand nearing the dirty cloth that had cleaned her bile, for support. Her face lit up in shock, then dropped in fear and worry, face scrunching.
Rafiq sighed. “Yes. They are gone. Does this have to do with that mage you found—that you keep bringing up?”
On top of the missives being gone, Rafiq's office looked ransacked—his neat rows of books on the shelves now leaned or had fallen over. Someone had thoroughly rifled through his nice stacks of papers.
Aisha noticed a few drops of blood trailing from the doorway into the office. If there were any signs of a trail of blood from leaving, she could not tell.
Aisha let a little smirk escaped in satisfaction, at least she pushed the face of that mage in some amount.
Aisha turned back around, clearing her throat. “As you know—the missive wasn't what was agreed upon. I was there for that meeting. How had it changed?”
“Some courier must have swapped it out—or . . . we're looking into it, rest assured.”
“‘Rest assured?’ I can't!" Aisha nearly shouted. “This could mean we lost the caravan! One mage each for something like that? Background checks? Hello? I know that thermal mage is fine enough, but the other two?”
“I-it's okay, Of-Jinan,” Zawar stuttered. “Breathe.”
That thermal mage was one of her tower's coworkers. Towers surrounded Glorestra, in equal intervals, looming up from its mighty walls. Each one had a team of mages inside casting magic each hour each day, keeping the tempest at bay. Glorestra was . . . to put it simply, stupid. As far as anyone knew, it was the only city out in the open. Each other city aboveground was built into a canyon or next to some large geological feature, protecting it from the worst heat and wind.
This meant, however, that Glorestra could expand as much as it wanted to, and boasted the largest human population known inside the tempest—which . . . was the known world. Even the Cavern cities, of course, could not compare. The population did mean that the mages could always work, and they had some to spare.
Her coworker thermal mage had been summoned for the caravan—surprisingly, to Aisha.
Glorestra had sent their second prince, Rais Of-Ghalib, to marry some princess of a neighboring city, Kanimaw. Princess . . . Uh . . . Also their second? No, it was more important than that, maybe their crown princess?
Rafiq's hands went to his temples and massaged them. “. . . If someone is covering this up, we can assume the worst.”
Aisha groaned.
“Now, what was this mage, you said?”
Aisha took a deep breath. “A new type of mage, I assume. They changed the lighting—had complete control over it. Darkness pulsed and flickered. They knew enough of it to incantate and channel through a staff.”
“A new type of mage?” Zawar asked. “You're sure?”
Rafiq frowned at Zawar, but said nothing.
“Yes,” patience left Aisha’s tone. “It seemed simple, though—for all that incantating. My body did feel like it was getting torn apart though, hence, the bile after . . . It went beyond light and had control over something else . . .”
Zawar had some reason to ask for clarity . . . The triad of heat, wind, and time was long established now, though, that was because society cherished these the most. Would control over light help navigate through the tempest to trade with other cities, or to keep it at bay? No. Anyway, in a lot of her boredom, Aisha had read lots of tomes on magical theory and knew about a potential for more types of mages . . . It was merely a matter of time before another one came to the fore.
“So,” Rafiq began. “You fought the mage, punched his skull in, passed out, and you woke up with the mage gone, run away with the missives?”
“I didn't punch their skull in enough,” Aisha grumbled, struggling to figure out how they had woken before her. Struggling to figure out how they had even lived, or how they had managed to get up, grab the missives, and disappear . . . She did not see any extraneous drops of blood out either way in the hall. Also—the mage had left Aisha alive. If they got away, they probably had a window to end her. So why hadn't they?
“This is . . . highly concerning.”
“No kidding,” Aisha scoffed.
“But not totally terrible,” Rafiq said. “In the meeting I brought up the topic, it will be investigated. Unfortunately for this new mage, they were too late.”
“And we're glad you're okay!” Zawar added, grinning.
“Where were you both?” Aisha asked. “You weren't here.”
“You didn't notice?” Zawar tilted his head. “We were in a meeting—an emergency one. Glorestra is spending more than it's earning. On top of that, funds worth two entire palaces have disappeared in the past months . . .”
Aisha knew that—mostly. Glorestra couldn't grow or harvest many resources at all. They had to import a lot of the necessities to live from the cavernous cities. Even goods of luxury came from the cavern cities. Glorestra had a modest amount of livestock. Most of its money came from enlisting mages to protect trade caravans, wild animal parts, and some surface stones and metals.
Aisha pushed herself off the ground. “Alright, I'll see myself out, head back to the mage tower and bore my brains out.”
“Yes, yes, and I'll work on moving your position to caravan duty,” Rafiq teased.
Aisha scowled at him. At least mage tower duty was relatively low risk work. Well, okay, the two were kind of similar. One, at least, had a comfort of civilization, instead of being in the middle of who knows where—except for the wayfinder—and at threat of being blown away and forgotten about, corpse left for vultures and sand sharks.
Aisha waved a hand.
“A-and we will clean up after your . . . Mess,” Zawar squinted at Aisha.
She stood to walk away when a man flanked by a pair of guards marched down the hall in their direction.
“Legislator Rafiq!” The man called, his walk turning into a hurried almost-run.
“What is it?”
“Couriers from Kanimaw arrived!” He did not look happy.
“D-did,” Rafiq swallowed. “Did they receive the prince safely?”
The man looked down at the floor. The silence told them everything.